Five years ago, I went in search of my maternal grandparents graves, I had never been there. A cemetery on the edge of the village of North Star, Michigan. The village was about as lively as the cemetery. Virtually all of the businesses were closed, even the bar had gone out of business and was for sale. There was one remaining church in town. *
Growing up there were lots of local jokes about the village of Lum, Michigan. One of my father's flying buddies had a large farm there, mowed a grass landing strip and put up signs for Lum International Airport. He got into trouble for flying back from Canada without stopping for customs and immigration one summer afternoon.** After that he asked the FAA to register his landing strip as an airport, and figured out that he was close enough to the border that as an official airport, if he called ahead and asked, customs and immigration had to have someone drive over and check incoming planes. Don't mess with bright farmers. He encouraged his flying buddies to do the same, just to mess with customs. ***
I had never been to Lum. The airport is gone, replaced by a golf course. There are a couple of dozen homes, and the rest of the town is gone. The local market and even the post office closed. Too many sprawlmarts 10 miles away.
My "home town" is changed from what it was 50 years ago. At one time there were three grocery markets, today there are none. The hardware store is still there, as it has been for 150 years, now operated by one of my high school classmates. But the town is still there. Hanging on.
* We did find the graves -
** He had been fishing
*** We never landed at Lum, by that time dad was renting airplanes and was reluctant to land a rental plane on a grass strip. He never flew across the border.
The house where I was born still stands in Brooklyn, although much has changed in the neighborhood due to urban renewal.
ReplyDeleteSomeday there will be plaque saying greatness was born here.
DeleteHavin g lived mostly in mid-sized areas they are all still around, as our the houses I have lived in.
ReplyDeleteThat said, about twenty years after my grandmother passed I was in Southern California, and thought I'd take some flowers to her grave. I was surprised at how easily I found it, but was stunned when I looked at the next grave because it had my name on it. I never knew my paternal grandfather but I was named after him and my Dad, and it was his grave.
Still a bit jarring to see my name on the headstone.
That would be an interesting experience. A friend of ours had a headstone engraved and put in the his backyard to remind him that his time on earth was limited. He died a few years later from cancer.
DeleteThe small town I grew up in is much the same as it was then -- still about the same number of people, same basic streets etc. However, it does have a new subdivision of large homes in what was once a depressed area of town, but is now "the" place to live, apparently.
ReplyDeleteWhere I grew up is less desirable than it was 40 years ago.
DeleteThat looks like a ghost town!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteIt is
DeleteThe city I grew up is still thriving and growing but I often wonder about some of the very small places we passed through when I was growing up.
ReplyDeleteA lot of farm towns have struggled
DeleteLooks like the set from the walking dead
ReplyDeleteLots of towns like that in the USA
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